Gonzaga U. Named to President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll

The honor is the highest federal recognition a college or university can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service-learning and civic engagement.

SPOKANE, Wash. — Gonzaga University, whose students have provided more than 100,000 hours of volunteer service to the community annually for several years, has been named to the 2009 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. Gonzaga is among 23 Jesuit colleges and universities named to the Honor Roll.

The honor is the highest federal recognition a college or university can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service-learning and civic engagement. The Corporation for National and Community Service, which administers the annual Honor Roll award, recognized more than 700 colleges and universities for their impact on issues from poverty and homelessness to environmental justice.

On campuses across the country, thousands of students joined their faculty to develop innovative programs and projects to meet local needs using the skills gained in their classrooms. Business students served as consultants to budget-strapped nonprofits and businesses, law students volunteered at legal clinics, and dozens of others organized anti-hunger campaigns.

“Congratulations to Gonzaga University and its students for their dedication to service and commitment to improving their local communities,” said Patrick Corvington, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service. “Our nation’s students are a critical part of the equation and vital to our efforts to tackle the most persistent challenges we face. They have achieved impactful results and demonstrated the value of putting knowledge into practice to help renew America through service.”

The Honor Roll includes 621 schools. Honorees are chosen based on a series of factors including the scope and innovation of service projects, percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service, and the extent to which the school offers academic service-learning courses. View the full list of Honor Roll recipients.
College students make a significant contribution to the volunteer sector; in 2009, 3.16 million students performed more than 300 million hours of service, according to the Volunteering in America study released by the Corporation.

The Corporation oversees the Honor Roll in collaboration with the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Campus Compact and the American Council on Education.

For more information about service-learning and community service at Gonzaga, please contact Sima Thorpe, director of the Center for Community Action and Service-Learning, at (509) 313-6856.